Julia You Stink, He Declared
by Gilly.Flowers
Summary: "Oh don't exaggerate, Barnabas. I swear, you're the most dramatic vampire I've ever met."


Barnabas froze mid-step through the doorway. He flung a hand up to pinch his nose, and twisted his body around, hunching over as if to vomit up and down her stairs. "Dear God! What a most horrid stench!" He cried, sounding very much in pain.

Julia scoffed, stifling laughter from where she sat on her patient's table, cross-legged. "Oh don't exaggerate, Barnabas. I swear, you're the most dramatic vampire I've ever met." Her hair was wet and darker than usual, strands clumped together, and had an orange-streaked towel hanging loosely around her shoulders. "It doesn't stink that bad. It's like smoking - you get used to it.

"It is a most horrid stench." Barnabas exclaimed, loud and angry and nasal.

Julia couldn't help herself from her giggles, though it seemed her slightly obnoxious guffawing drew manly courage from the sick monster. Slowly, he straightened up and inched through the door, glancing up every now and then to glare with believable conviction at his mind doctor. He looked hesitant. Scared even, she'd be willing to venture at that moment. But finally, when he was not five feet away from where she was, Barnabas dropped his hand.

"What are you doing, pray-tell doctor, that is causing such an... odor?" He asked in a liquid calm voice. The abrupt shift in his demeanor and focus stunned even Julia quiet, and for a short second she was sure he was going to kiss her. When he didn't, she squinted in her professional sort of way, squaring her shoulders. If he was going to play games with her - toy with her - just for _answers_, she was going to play too.

Her fingers twitched, and she glanced down at her lap, disinterestedly flipping the pages to her magazine. This was the first time Barnabas noticed the glossy booklet laying face up across Julia's legs. "Why the sudden balls, Barna-boso?" She countered, looking up at him from beneath her eyelashes, a coy grin spreading her mouth. "I thought the stench was _most horrid_."

She was mocking him. He could tell.

"I do not need to breath -" Her head snapped up, her pretty face the picture of befuddlement. "thus I do not need to smell. I suppose it is merely force of habit."

The doctor's eyes narrowed slightly, her tongue sweeping over her painted lips. He could practically see the words he had just said getting tossed around and roughed up in her wondrous mind, could almost feel her acceptance.

"Fascinating," Julia mumbled, trying to hide it but full of awe. Some how at some point they had leaned into one another, as if they were confiding in some fantastic secret. When she spoke it splashed against his face, warm and scented of booze.

"So why exactly are you down here, Mr. Collins?" The spell broke. "We hadn't scheduled an appointment for tonight - unless I was drunk and forgot when we did. Did we?"

"No no, you're quite right. An appointment is not why I am here, I assure you." Barnabas shook his head.

"..._Well_?" Julia barked, frustration showing through her bristled feathers. Barnabas had the audacity to chuckle.

"_Well_, I saw from my... mm, balcony... That your office lights were lit, despite the reasonably late hour. I have absolutely nothing to do, Elizabeth has suggested intently her disapproval of my strolling beyond the estate grounds before sunrise - but when I saw the sight of your glowing electric lanterns it became clear there was a feisty opportunity awaiting me to do. That is to say curiosity -"

"So basically you're here to fuck me." Julia flat-lined.

"I - ...basically." He confirmed, a little exasperated. He sounded ever so American it brought on an amused grin from the doctor, but she didn't dare bring up how well he was catching onto the modern accent.

"And why not go and bother your reincarnated lover instead?" She continued, unwilling to let her little game slip.

Barnabas smirked crookedly, his gaze shamelessly skimming down her body. She was wearing blue sweatpants and striped socks, some band name brandished on the breast of her terribly stained t-shirt, her chest bra-less beneath the easily tearable cloth. It irked him that he still hadn't found out what she was doing though, what was causing the mysterious smell. "If you think upon it, my dear, Miss Victoria is - I love her very much. But _you_ are my lover." How thrilling... "And despite my - pardon me - preference of her, she is asleep. We are the only two alive in the world, doctor Hoffman."

Julia tilted her head, inclining subtly towards him with an indifferent almost-smile, ingesting his cruel honesty with precocious detachment. "Barnabas, you intrigue me." She whispered, and despite herself the psychiatrist's eye lids slid shut when the vampire leaned forth and pressed a cool, lingering kiss to her dry lips, her cheeks flushing.

"Likewise." Barnabas set his palms down on the table beside her hips, trapping her, and he tossed her magazine over his shoulder. "Now, answer me the one and only question you've seemed to have avoided my entire visit: what are you doing, madame?"

Julia lent back on her hand, the other reaching out to her left to grasp her carton of smokes. She handed Barnabas her little bedazzled lighter and popped a cigarette in her mouth, nodding idly in his direction: flare me up, big boy. It was only after a long drag and a thorough inspection of her fingernails did she deem the suspense sufficient enough.

"Shockingly, Barnabas, I'm fuckin' old." Julia stated, shrugging her shoulders as if saying so didn't bother her in the slightest. "And I hate grey hairs so I'm getting rid of 'em."

He stared at her in soft puzzlement. "What?"

"Sweety, I know your'e two hundred years old but surely you didn't think I'm _naturally_ orange." She waited for something to click in his eyes, but nothing happened in front of her. "Oy vey, you've gotta be shitting me. _I dye my hair, Barnabas_. Regularly at that - though I'm distraught to report more frequently as of late." She grumbled. "That's what 20th-century people do - they dye the dead shit on their heads in a pitiful attempt to erase the years from their physical being."

Her patient frowned, looking petulantly disgusted. "Julia, you stink." He declared, her words going right over his head. "Wash that out of your hair, doctor, so I might kiss you without getting - it - on me."


End file.
